


Of Ice and Equations

by Diminua



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: M/M, Mutually Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 03:41:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9217043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diminua/pseuds/Diminua
Summary: Bond can't help picking at the scabs. Never could.





	

He’s not into beauty particularly, but the lunatics he’s hunting so often are, and that usually means some pretty, vacuous, caged thing that learns not to ask questions but sees enough to be afraid, who believes Bond will protect them, maybe, if they help him. That they can cement his loyalty with sex. 

It’s almost amusing, in a cold way. 

Perhaps it’s being jaded. A sliver of distorting mirror in his eye that means he can’t even see beauty any more. Only short sight, curious eyes behind black-framed glasses, trying to get the measure of him. Skin still disrupted by hormones, a parka hanging loose on a featherweight frame. 

He sees clever, but not so clever that Q’s never made a mistake before. Nor so weak that he won’t try to fix it, even if it means taking a risk. Dry humour in the quirk of his mouth, the arch of an eyebrow, the tone of a voice. 

Later he catches something in the way Q moves. Economical, like one of his own perfectly balanced mechanisms, wrist ratcheting round as he turns a screwdriver, nothing superfluous in it. The easy technique with which he removes a powerful weapon from Bond’s grasp, tilting the barrel up and taking the weight. Competent. Comfortable.

And the eyes, more direct the more they work together, especially if Q is trying to make a point, standing straight in front of Bond. Looking straight at him too, since they are much of a height, with eyes that are green, and calm, and level. 

Eyes he can’t quite read. A puzzle of ice and equations. 

Beauty – well Bond has his own share of masculine beauty. It’s the good suit, muscles and jawline and other externalities not worth listing. They’re not James Bond, any more than his Aston is James Bond. James Bond is there in the fun he has driving fast cars, the dedication to duty that keeps him in training. The grief for M, and the picking up of the pieces afterwards. 

The way he always comes back, both swaggering and repentant. Like a tomcat who’s been out on the tiles. 

Q doesn’t bother feigning surprise this time. He knew Bond was coming back when he took the car. He’ll be astonished if Bond hadn’t realised the car’s location could be tracked. Not that Q had bothered. 

Now he simply opens up his instant messaging box and lets Tanner know that their errant spy has returned home. 

‘You could have given me a couple of hours at least.’ Bond complains.

‘A couple of hours hanging around my workshop and seeing if there’s anything else you can appropriate? Thank you, no.’ 

Q barely looks up before he goes back to whatever he was doing before, light-bathed in the glow of his laptop, and suddenly Bond sees it, in the shadow of his lashes against his cheek, the artless tumble of his fringe over the bridge of his glasses, the swell of his lip as he bites it, slowly, thoughtfully, reabsorbed in work. Beauty. 

It’s not a revelation. It doesn’t make Bond want him one whit more or less than he did before. But Q is his friend and possibly – in fact certainly - fonder of Bond than Bond has any right to expect. He doesn’t want to come to the end of him, as he did with Madeleine. Q is a puzzle not to be solved, a conundrum all the better for being impossible. Still Bond can’t help picking at the scabs. Never could.

‘Do you still hate me?’ 

‘Naturally I do. Why else do you think I’m so keen to have you escorted out?’ 

‘But I’ve missed you.’

‘Don’t.’ Q’s head comes up then, the very direct, honest, gaze that Bond has missed. ‘I’d rather you didn’t.’

‘Then I won’t.’ 

‘Thank you.’ Q returns to his screen, something catching his attention. ‘Tanner will be here shortly.’ 

Bond nods and goes back to prowling Q’s office, picking things up and putting them down again. He’s well aware Q is owed an apology. Something more perhaps as well: _If we were different people, or the same people with different lives.._ but they’re not, and that was what he had offered Vesper, offered Madeleine, and it had been a lie. Always and forever a lie, even if he hadn’t really known it himself. 

‘I don’t hate you.’ Q’s eyes never leave his laptop, his fingers clicking softly over the keys, but he’s obviously aware of Bond. ‘I’ve certainly cursed you, on occasion, but not hated you.’ 

‘Good.’ Bond turns over some ammunition casings curiously. ‘If I make it to retirement will you make me a gadget?’

‘Wouldn’t your making it to retirement depend on you still working here?’ 

‘Don’t give me that. You knew I was coming back.’ 

‘Granted. But in that case, don’t you think you’ve had enough from me for one lifetime?’ 

Bond hesitates. ‘Yes.’ He admits at last. ‘But it doesn’t stop me wanting more.’ 

‘Of course not.’ Q says. Wilfully ignoring any and all subtext. 

Then, finally lifting his eyes from the laptop again as the double doors behind Bond start to pull apart, and smiling his polite smile. ‘Goodbye 007.’


End file.
